Amber Alert

Death hasn’t ever been part of my life. The closest living being I have ever lost is a dog, and I’m not an animal lover so it didn’t strike me intensely. I’m not prepared to lose something, let alone someone who is close to me.
It’s difficult to admit, but I am scared. I try to be strong, hide my fears, but my face betrays me. The fear lives in my eyes. It sits on my tongue. The wrinkles in my forehead get deeper every day. There isn’t a mask big enough– thick enough to cover up what my face refuses to hide.
My Grampa is my hero. He’s my male role model. He’s my replacement dad. He’s my everything. At the adolescent age of sixty-three, he is a walking miracle. He has died twice, once from hypothermia, once from a hospital dropping him on his head. He was in a coma for a period of time which caused brain damage and loss of use of appendages. His voice box was damaged in the midst of all this. His face was ripped from his skull. He has had three major cardiac arrests. He has eleven stents in his heart. He has lost everybody who was ever close to him. He married the devil, then assisted in the reproduction and upbringing of her children, one of which turned out just like her. And even through all he has endured, he is the kindest, most considerate man I have ever met. He is my Grampa.
Finding out he had cancer the first time around was rough on me. It never quite sank in due to the eighty-five percent chance that the chemotherapy would kill off the bad cells. It did. A year had passed before he let anyone know he was getting sick again. Here I will mention that this man wishes for no one to fuss over his health. Anyway, he allowed himself to get to the point of severe internal bleeding before informing his wife that he wasn’t feeling well. Four days in a hospital and many tests later, his freakishly tall doctor came and began with the words, “I’m sorry.” This time, there was no hope for recovery. Six months go home and die. My world crashed.
I watched this man cry or a few days. He watched the Christian Health Network and begged his wife for every herbal cure they thought they had found. He was really scared and it was written all over his sallow face. My Grampa didn’t have six months to live, he had six months to die. And the second that the goliath doctor told him he was dying, he died. I was mourning the loss of Grampa while his heart was still beating– his heart is still beating.
He traveled to a cancer test center to see if they could help him. They decided to toy with our emotions, saying that our hospital had been mistaken and there was no cancer. Our hopes started breathing again. I saw my Grampa’s green eyes shine once more. After swallowing a video camera confirming his miraculous recovery, we celebrated. We told all our friends that he was healed. Then they decided to make sure they hadn’t missed anything. The drove a tube down his nose into his small intestines, the cancer’s home, and confirmed their mistake. They are preparing to biopsy, they assume it may be worse than we thought. The three tumors have a high probability of being malignant. And I am scared again.
I’m sick of this. I’m sick of everyone being sick. I’m sick of being scared. I’m sick sick sick. I’m going to lose my Grampa, my replacement daddy, my everything. My world is going to shatter into a million pieces. And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men are going to have to work really hard to put it back together again.
Pull out the super glue-
Jessica D. Hunt